Gay Sailor's Death Personalizes Debate

January 31, 1993|By Cheryl Lavin and Merrill Goozner. Correspondent David Evans and researcher Lynne Marek contributed to this report from Washington.

Allen Schindler has put a face on the debate over lifting the ban on gays in the military.

Schindler is the Chicago Heights sailor who was brutally murdered in Japan last October-allegedly by shipmates-just a month after he told his officers he was gay.

To the gay community, he is a hero. To the military establishment he is an extreme example of why homosexuals don't belong in the service.

But to his mother, Dorothy Hajdys, he is just a boy, killed under circumstances no one has explained to her. Was his murder random or premeditated? Does the guilt end with the people who beat him? Or does it go higher, to those officers aboard the USS Belleau Wood who may have known that Schindler's life was in danger and did nothing to protect him? Who may have even condoned violence against gays and now may be engaged in a cover-up?

Every time she has turned to the Navy for answers, she has been met with silence, indifference and, she believes, lies.

Allen Schindler is an unlikely hero. Only 22 when he was killed, he was a gentle person. Friends say he loved animals and cried when one of his pet lizards died. On his days off, he visited pet shops and played video games. He joined the Navy in 1988, after graduating from Bloom Township High School.

In high school Schindler had girlfriends, and one of his mother's proudest pictures is of her handsome son and his prom date.

Yet, at some time during his four years in the Navy, his homosexuality became obvious to him.

Some say the military attracts a disproportionate number of young men who are fighting the growing awareness of their homosexuality.

"They see the recruiting posters with the macho Marines and think the military will make them straight," says Gregg Monsma, head of the San Diego Veterans Association, a gay advocacy group.

In May 1991, Schindler confided to his mother that he was gay and while in San Diego, where he spent much of his time in the Navy, he lived a gay lifestyle.

Although the military bans homosexuals, that has never kept them out of the service, a fact the military readily acknowledges.

In fact, gay servicemen form their own "informal chain of command," according to a recently retired Navy captain. "This is a major problem because as a commander you are trying to put together a cohesive team, and they are not part of the team."

Until Schindler got to the USS Belleau Wood in December 1991, his sexuality was not a problem for him. He liked the Navy so much he encouraged his younger brother, William, 17, to enlist and talked about making the Navy his career. He extended his four-year tour of duty by six months so he could be on the final voyage of the World War II aircraft carrier USS Midway.

Ricardo Gonzalez, a former sailor, served with Schindler on the Midway. He says Schindler was "actively gay" and some of their shipmates were aware of it, but no one bothered him. Some military assignments are safer for homosexuals than others.

"Any commander can create a safe environment for gays if he wants to," says former Navy officer Jim Woodward, a counselor with the Lesbian and Gay Men's Community Center in San Diego. "Medical commands, for the most part, are pretty safe. Medical officers are a different breed than line officers. They're less conservative."

Gays in the military exchange stories of safe havens. Woodward says the USS Constellation has a group that calls itself "The Connie Queens."

"These openly gay members are an ongoing tradition," Woodward says.

"There are places where, if you do your job, they leave you alone," says Jim Jennings, a former sailor who was a friend of Schindler's. "And others where they make your life hell."

If there are safe havens for gays in the military, there are also danger spots. The USS Belleau Wood, an amphibious assault ship that carries nearly 1,000 men, is one of them. The quarters are tight, and sailors sleep in bunks stacked three high. Proximity often is used as one of the major arguments against allowing homosexuals in the military.

The Belleau Wood, based in Sasebo, Japan, was known for trouble. When the ship pulled into port in September, some Japanese held protests. They had signs saying, "Go Home Belleau Wood."

"I probably agree with them," Schindler wrote in his journal.

A foreigner familiar with the area agrees. "The Japanese are very peaceful people, they have very little crime, if any, and they didn't want these guys coming into town and causing a lot of trouble," says Eric Underwood, a performer at Huis Ten Bosch, an amusement park just outside Sasebo. "Every time the Belleau Wood pulled into port, cars were overturned, vending machines were vandalized, shops were robbed."

"When the Belleau Wood pulled in, it was like being in East L.A.," says Rod Burton, another performer at the park. "There were major gangs on the ship, and it was scary. You could see a difference between the guys off the Belleau Wood and the ones off the other ships, the way they dressed, the way they hung out. They were a rough group."